The following resources give an overview of the main issues and controversies concerning free speech on college campuses. Also included are links to SUNY New Paltz policies relevant to speech on campus.

Trigger warnings, Microaggressions, Safe Spaces and Free Speech

“Something strange is happening at America’s colleges and universities. A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.”

“Addressing campus speakers, a number of whom have been disinvited following student protests in recent years, PEN says that invitations should stand, once made. Threats of violence, even, shouldn’t lead to the withdrawal of invitations following controversy, it says, except in the most extreme cases. Protesters should have an opportunity to make themselves heard but shouldn’t shut down or prevent others from hearing the guest.”

“Recent incidents at DePaul and UC Irvine raise the question of what obligations a college has to make sure that protesters -- while objecting to an event -- can't shut it down or block its ideas from being heard.”

“In recent years, there has been a vigorous cottage industry of websites and publications (most but not all on the political right) trying to generate controversy about college professors who say or believe things outside the rather narrow mainstream of public opinion”

“The moral of the recent melee at Middlebury College, where students shouted down and chased away a controversial social scientist, isn’t just about free speech, though that’s the rubric under which the ugly incident has been tucked. It’s about emotional coddling. It’s about intellectual impoverishment.”

“The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren’t at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards — and we all lose.”

“There is agreement on both the political left and right that a majority of college professors in the United States are liberal or left-of-center. But do liberals stifle free speech — particularly that of political and social conservatives — on college campuses?”

The rights of journalists and citizen journalists in covering campus events and protests

“College campuses are alive with activism. Recent weeks have seen students assemble on quads and in academic buildings to condemn racism, debate free-expression principles, make demands of administrators—and, in many cases, try to place restrictions on journalists trying to document these protests, or turn them away entirely.”

“I am a person of color and a Muslim. That’s a double whammy when it comes to representation in the media. But before becoming an assistant professor of journalism, I was a full-time journalist for 15 years. I traveled the globe and have seen first-hand how the same story can be shifted to fit corporate agendas and personal biases. I have seen how reporters of color can be steamrolled in a newsroom. I teach my journalism students about it in class. I warn against the dangers of it and how they can fight it. But I also recognize that the rights of the press have to be protected.”